16: David Tisch, Managing Partner at BoxGroup

Very few individuals in the startup community have seen deep success as operators, investors and community builders — it’s why this week I was so excited to chat with David Tisch. David is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, an early stage venture fund in NYC; via BoxGroup, he has invested in a number of fantastic companies — GroupMe, Trello, ClassPass, Warby Parker and Harry’s amongst others. He also is the Founder and current Chairman of Spring, an e-commerce platform that recently raised $65M from Fidelity as well as the Head of the Startup Studio at Cornell. All three of his current roles, as well as his prior role in founding Techstars NYC give David a deep and thoughtful perspective on startups and technology.  We talked about a number of topics in our conversation related to the state of venture, startups and careers. Some of the most interesting perspectives David had centered around: (1) how technology has moved from a vertical to a horizontal, (2) what NY has doubled down on and how it has propelled to become a world class innovation hub and (3) how defining yourself is about more than just your pedigree.